Mack Show Truck Stars at Evel Knievel Documentary Premiere

He should have taken a seminar on effective decision-making.

The thing we wanted to be, apparently, to get over all that? Knievel’s personality and tenacity would serve him well in forcing his way into popularity and fame, but it was often disastrous on a personal level. A motorcycle madman whose cape and spangles shone nearly as bright as his genius for promotion.

Evel Knievel started out as a low-level crook named Robert Knievel in Butte, Montana. This all reached a head at Knievel’s infamous Snake River Canyon jump (this Idaho location was picked after the state department denied his requests to jump the Grand Canyon).

That holds true for his crashes as well.

Variously cribbing his image from Elvis, James Brown, and Liberace, Knievel becomes a recognizable huckster and all-American showman. That statement is a testament to the comprehensiveness of the film from Daniel Junge and the fact that the daredevil is starting to feel like an anachronism. During the same tumultuous period, Muhammad Ali was a different, risky sort of hero (and, well, black), while Knievel positioned himself as a TV-ready paladin in white leather-the antithesis of outlaw biker culture. We’re told they lit outhouses on fire after turning over a beer truck and shooting the locks off the door.

Whether that’s credible the film never makes clear. What is clear: that Knievel’s team intentionally sabotaged their first test run, to gin up anticipation, but then couldn’t make it work in their second, secret attempt. But perhaps it was simply unavoidable, since every intimate source interviewed has a lot to get off his or her chest – including a press agent who ended up feeling Knievel’s fury via an assault with a baseball bat. (He actually had a comic book dedicated to him and pages of it are seen in that bravado opening title sequence.) He was a frequent guest on television talk shows (there’s a clip with Dick Cavett where Knievel appears to be wearing a marbled black-and-white jumpsuit, and looks like the cover of a John Grisham paperback), had a line of best-selling toys (that looked pretty cool), had a “mythic” biographical feature film made about him that was written by legendary tough guy John Milius and performed by George Hamilton, and elevated licensing to an art form. The filmmakers rubber-stamp some aspects of his legend, but they don’t shy away from Knievel’s cruelty and vanity.

“Truckers are focused on safety, and when you spend all your time on your toes and focused on safety, I think it’s good to see someone who… wasn’t so focused on safety”, said Knoxville.

He may not be likable, but he remains fascinating. Produced by and essentially starring Knievel fan Johnny Knoxville as lead talking head, the Sundance-premiered pic has above-average marketability as a platform-release docu, though it should connect more strongly with its base on the smallscreen. Being Evel showcases some of the best of their stunts and spills, many of them glorious and imaginative – but, somehow, they don’t clutch the heart or seize the imagination the way Knievel’s did.